I have a CSA share—that means I pay in advance to get a bag of vegetables each week from a local farm. I typically get a squash in the cooler months so I'm always on the hunt for new squash recipes.

Luckily my family loves to eat squash. And that's a good thing, as all varieties give you a big bang for your nutrition buck. One cup of cooked winter squash is high in both vitamin A (214% of the recommended daily value) and vitamin C (33%), as well as being a good source of vitamins B6 and K, potassium and folate.

Here are 6 of my favorite varieties plus delicious squash recipes to cook. Many squash varieties are interchangeable, so don't be afraid to experiment.

On my seemingly endless journey to get back to a healthier weight, I'm trying to focus on eating more vegetables. Loading up a meal with veggies lets me eat a bigger portion size without adding a lot of calories, so I can still feel satisfied.

Stir-fries are one of my favorite ways to make this mantra a reality. I turn to stir-fry recipes on busy weeknights for a quick and healthy dinner that the family will actually eat—even my 3-year-old. Stir-fries are super-adaptable. Plus, I'm a veg head and CSA junkie, so I can often whip up a stir-fry just by digging...

My husband, Dan, actually likes Valentine’s Day, the Hallmark holiday of holidays. Flowers, cute cards, a little gift, a fancy dinner out or one made together at home (with plenty of good wine, of course). And maybe a back rub while we’re binge-watching Netflix, if I’m lucky.

But now we have an almost 4-year-old. Forget spending all day cooking fancy Valentine’s Day recipes. Rarely are we afforded the luxury of lingering over three-hour candlelit dinners. (Heck, we’re lucky if we can have a five-minute-long conversation while the kid is awake, these days.) But we’d still like to enjoy a nice meal together as a family. We’re fortunate that our daughter, Lila, loves to cook and eat. So I’m planning a menu that we can enjoy together.

Unfortunately for my husband, I wasn’t born with a sweet tooth—I was born with what I like to call a salty-fatty tooth (mmm, chips...) But I do like to make him sweet treats every once in a while. We’re trying to save money this year, so I decided that in lieu of a gift for Valentine’s Day, I’d give him what he really wants.

And what my man really wants is really simple (whew). He wants chocolate. He’s not too picky about the kind of chocolate, though he prefers it dark, and he’ll eat it plain, with fruit or with nuts. So when he’s out skiing with his buddies the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, I’m going to...

I am lucky that my mother-in-law lives year-round on Cape Cod: we visit there several times a year and I get to eat some of the best clam chowder—or as we say in some parts of New England, clam chowdah. (She’s in Massachusetts, after all.) In Maine, where I lived until recently, I consumed gallons of chowder in varying forms—clam chowder, corn chowder, seafood chowder, the list goes on.

I love to make chowder at home, too, and when the weather cools down, one chowder recipe or another appears on my weekly menu along with some homemade bread. (This one’s my go-to chowder recipe.)